


H. inanis syreni

by Arya_Greenleaf



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, F/M, Inappropriate Use of the Force, Interspecies Awkwardness, M/M, MerMay, Mermaids, Psychic Bond, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-28
Updated: 2017-05-28
Packaged: 2018-11-05 21:08:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11021637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arya_Greenleaf/pseuds/Arya_Greenleaf
Summary: Armitage Hux is the captain of the Starkiller, a freighter that he's engineered to handle the worst that the galaxy can throw at him. Growing up in the years after the Empire's fall, moving from ship to ship on the waves of his father's paranoia, the one comfort he found was in the stories each crew told. Some fantastic creatures, he would find, were as real as the durasteel beneath his feet and the recycled oxygen in his chest. Others, while vivid in his dreams, he never thought he'd ever encounter in reality.





	H. inanis syreni

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Give it a chance?

Spending a lifetime on starships, jumping from sector to sector while his father ran from invisible pursuers—dogs sent by the Republic to take him down—Hux had found a singular thread of stability in the stories that all of the crews seemed to share.

Stories about fantastic creatures!

Gigantic, brilliantly colored whales that swam through space and breathed poison gas. If you could swing into their migratory groups you could get a boost into hyperspace, travel through it even if your drive was down—but you had to be careful they didn’t drift into your hull—the impact could destroy the ship.

Angels with powerful wings and faces that morphed to be most beautiful to whomever looked upon them.

Little pink birds who understood human speech—and could be used for dastardly ends—spying was rampant along the chain of command.

They were all strange and exciting, but none held any wonder for Hux in the way that one particular story did. As a child, Hux would sit in rapture, stealing moments to listen to tall tales before Brendol would once again confine him to the state rooms or cramped quarters appointed to his family on whatever ship would take their credits.

Young Hux would commit each new detail to memory, slowly forming a picture in his mind, eyes wide and round and his thin fingers wrapped around a cup of caf that was mostly blue milk. The crew’s stories became more wild with each telling.

There were creatures were half-man and half-fish. _Which half?_ The pretty half.

 _Only man?_ Pretty ladies and pretty men. But they are dangerous! _Would they hurt you?_ Aye, but maybe not on purpose.

They swim though space and— _How do they swim with no water?_ They use the Force, of course. _But what is the Force?_ The thing that connects us all. They swim through space with their pretty faces, making starship crews believe that they are lost, their ship flown away while they weren’t aboard.

If you look at them, they trick you into doing things! _What kind of things?_ Opening airlocks, dropping cargo—or following them home. _I would like to visit their home._ No, you would not! Their home would _kill you_. You can’t breathe there. _Why not?_ Because their air is made a’ the same stuff comes outta Lor when he’s been into duratinned beans.

Their skin twinkles in the starlight—like they’ve got it in them. But you can’t touch them! _Why?_ It burns. No, it cuts! Your hand would go right through, they're just a trick of the stardust.

But if you catch one, and it loves you—it’ll speak. _They don’t speak all the time?_ No, Red, they don’t. _Do I have to teach it Basic?_ No, it’ll speak inside your head and you’ll just… understand. You don’t want to hear the voice that comes out of their mouth. _Yes, I do!_ It’s so ugly, it would shatter all the viewports and then you wouldn’t have to worry about following ‘em home.

Inevitably, Brendol would come and yank Armitage away from the mess, away from the crew. He chastised Hux over filling his head with nonsense, tugging him down corridors by the shell of his ear. “You should be studying your maps, boy. The Empire needs children to fulfill the promise of its future—it doesn’t need simpletons who believe in mermaids.”

 _Mermaids_.

 

***

 

Armitage had been relieved when Brendol died.

He’d long since learned to allow the wicked things that Brendol said to him slide off of his shoulders. It had been hard as a child, but it grew easier as the years crawled by. His father, he came to realize, was a frightened old man. Frightened of his own mortality, his own inadequacy.

There was no Empire. No Resistance.

Palpatine had fallen and the Republic was stable and thriving. With Bail Organa at the head of the Senate and his wife, Queen Breha, leading the charge of interplanetary aid and cooperation, Palpatine’s loyal had no footing. Most had settled in the Outer Rim, swearing to return one day when they had rallied their strength. None of the people who lived on the Rim--common citizens, laborers, nobles—none would respond to the antagonizing the Imperials made a regular habit of. They wouldn’t be organized into armies, they wouldn’t relinquish their profits or products. They had no interest in overthrowing a Republic that kept them fed and cared for their sick.

The Empire was dead.

Bruises had faded, words stung less with distance. Anger and resentment simmered into a kind of apathy that Hux could tuck away into a corner of his mind he had less use for.

What little credit Brendol hadn’t squandered in his ship-hopping and conspiracy had transferred to Hux once he was the only one of his name. With it, he bought into the business.

Totally legitimate. Almost.

Only a small fraction of the cargo on the freighter was smuggled.

He’s spent some time aboard the _Starkiller_ , it being the last ship that Brendol had hustled them onto when Hux was sixteen and fresh-faced and hopeful that maybe, _maybe_ , he’d be able to crawl out from beneath his father’s thumb. Brendol left their quarters less and less often in the first year. Hux took the opportunity to return to it equally as infrequently. He slept in the crew’s quarters, learned how the ship ran by working alongside them. The engineering holos he’d been obligated to pour over— _How can you hope to lead a fleet if you don’t understand how it runs? Useless boy._ —had actually proven useful. The people who kept the ship afloat traded stories for chores and by the time he was twenty-one with callused hands that he could no longer scrub the stain of engine grease off of, he knew the workings of the ship from port to starboard and forward to aft. 

He also had a knowledge of every creature of the void that rivaled the holonet.

Hux paid his dues, working the freighter and hauling cargo and making deals across the galaxy. Eventually, he came to own the _Starkiller_  and the business she supported outright.

Business, as he would find, would never keep his head out of the nebulae.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiya! I hope the intro wasn't too boring, I just really wanted to get it up here. I've got so many ideas about how mermaids in space work and I can't wait to share them with you. I'll add tags if they become appropriate. I haven't quite decided how this is going to end.
> 
> Toss me a comment down below or come find me on [tumblr.](http://avaahren.tumblr.com/)


End file.
